Reader Ted Adams would like to make Safari a little easier on the eyes. He writes:

When I open Safari on my 27-inch iMac, the image only takes up a third of the screen width, making reading the small print difficult. I use the “Smaller/Bigger” icons in the menu bar to enlarge the image, but I have to do this every time I open Safari. Is there a way to make Safari open in the “Bigger” format automatically?

I'll offer two ways to approach this one.

If you simply want pages to display larger fonts, you can do that by choosing Safari -> Preferences, clicking the Advanced preference, and enabling the Never Use Font Size Smaller Than option that appears next to the Universal Access heading. Choose a font size such as 14. When you do this, fonts on pages you visit should appear at a size of 14 point or larger. (Should is important here. Not all pages respond to this setting.)

Using Safari's Advanced tab you can ask that fonts meet a minimum point size

If you simply want Safari to automatically open at a particular zoom setting you can do that too. Taking a cue from our very own Mac OS X Hints, this tip describes the process.

Create a new file using TextEdit or another text editor that can save a plain text file. Copy this code into it:

body {
zoom: 130%;
}

Save the file with any name you like but be sure to add the .css extension to it—so, myzoom.css, for instance. Now open Safari’s preferences, click the Advanced tab, and from the Style Sheet pop-up menu, choose Other. In the navigation sheet that appears locate the .css file you created, select it, and click the Choose button. Safari should automatically zoom to 130 percent. If you don’t like that level of zoom, just change the 130 in the code to a different number—the higher the number, the greater the zoom level.

To permanently return to the default view size, simply return to the Advanced tab within Safari’s preferences and choose None Selected from the Style Sheet pop-up menu. To temporarily zoom out, just press Command-minus (–).

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